[Editor's. Note: This issue is resolved, as the posted links were not pointing to the full crooner bigband demos.
Correct links for full bigband crooner demos are:
Crooner Ballad BigBand http://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/audio/realtracksdemos/2792band.m4a _BLIZARD.sty or _WINTER.sty style
Crooner Bossa BigBand http://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/audio/realtracksdemos/2781band.m4a _GOLDEN.sty
]

First,

Let me say that I gravitate towards the jazz offerings. So the Hawaiian, house, rap, country, celtic, rock, etc. are not my focus. Also, I do understand the interface has improved/advanced - but my perspective is what comes out of the speakers is king and the buttons or screens to get to that point can be sub-optimal as long as what I hear as an end-result is pleasing. Yes, there may be some improvements here (more time doubling options, etc) - but I am mainly focused on the "core" sound of the real tracks (new content). Even the gypsy jazz is a bit limited.

To that end, I was listening to the new horns - 10-part bossa is starting to sound "MIDI". Mainly the sax section is sounding more like a single instrument than individual instruments (synth-like). The crooner ballad style sounds fine from the samples (well, one sample at least - see below).

Mittens Jazz w/3 saxes - sounds "off" (https://youtu.be/d6Ru_aWsVIM?t=265).

Flute/tenor bossa - Tenor sounds like a strange phasing at end of long-tone. Overall blending of the horns is "off". This is judging by the demo - which should strive to pick a "best of" clip. (https://youtu.be/d6Ru_aWsVIM?t=485).

Anyone else sensing like the latest jazz-oriented ("straight ahead") styles are sounding more robotic than the past real tracks?

It has me on the fence a bit as I saw 2016 as a great set. My main beef with 2016 was the real-track solos and how the phrases would sometimes repeat, like David Letterman, what I felt were the "stinker"/trite phrases instead of using those more sparingly. But the backgrounds I thought were great.

2017, even with all the other improvements - I'm more focused on the new realtracks would would potentially fit into my use.

The problem I first hear with this one is the tempo is just so slow (60 bpm). Must have been hard for the sax guys to play that slow....
But after listening a bit more and hitting regenerate a couple times I did start to hear some phrases and dynamics which showed off more of the horn section then in the demo that you referenced.

I'm a jazz guy too Jason but not exclusively. I'm also a classic rocker on keyboards as well.

Biab is just another tool, it's not designed to be a complete self-contained computerized jazz group that can come up with the things you're talking about. We're just not there yet.

However, in Real Band you can create multiple tracks of the same soloist (multiriffs) and start stitching together one good solo from a bunch of different versions of it. You can also change the chords and part markers for each generation using RB's chord grid without changing what you already generated. That yields interesting results sometimes. I just did that with the Eric Marienthal soloist. I only needed three different versions to get what I wanted in that case.

As for trite licks and repetition, we don't know exactly how the RT's are produced or how large a RT file can be. I'm sure there are finite limits. Remember the person recording those has to keep things generic because he has no idea what chords a user is going to use. He's playing blind trying to record phrases that will go with basically anything. You will hear a lot of standard 2-5-1 things but what if someone puts a completely different chord into that or stretches it out or whatever?

There has to be repetition because there's only so much room for different licks. I can imagine if they were to double the size of the RT's to allow for twice the amount of phrases and licks that would also greatly increase the generation time especially on older and slower systems.

They can only do so much right now but it gets better every year. Whether that's good enough for you to upgrade is up to you.

Bob

The issue there is that you aren't listening to bigband bossa crooner or bigband ballad crooner in those links you posted. Those are links to some specialized versions of them that just have 2 or 3 instruments, not the 10 or 11 the ones using 2 or 3 are playing independently, not like the full one that is playing together.

Have a listen to the full big band in the two links on this page, search for crooner to find them.

http://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.realtracks.htm

Crooner Ballad BigBand http://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/audio/realtracksdemos/2792band.m4a _BLIZARD.sty or _WINTER.sty style
Crooner Bossa BigBand http://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/audio/realtracksdemos/2781band.m4a _GOLDEN.sty

The new crooners as good or better than previous ones (e.g. swing) IMO. We do have full band demos in the detailed how-to video for 2017 and the page above. They just forgot to out the full bigband videos in that video you watched.

I'll mark this issue 'resolved' since you were pointing out different (non big-band) demos. I'm assuming the ones I posted are satisfactory, if not let me know.

I fail to see how Realband (which is in the topic subject) is relevant in the original post.
Did OP mean Realtracks and not Realband?

Yes, the realtracks. Realband is one of the two players available for realtrack content - so in that sense "realband content" is sufficiently correct although perhaps not as laser-focused as "realtracks".

The links were provided because as I was writing the message - I went back and viewed even more video content than I previously reviewed and had - at my ready - links to provide.

My general feedback is the quality of the horn combo/band has, to my ears, gone down vs. the 2016 crooner material. This is subjective feedback. To mark it as solved because I didn't provide a link seems odd - but that's fine. It doesn't change my opinion which remains.

About replacing real players - I completely understand. I have commented in another thread on a possible method to improve at least the solo generation. This thread is more about the water-line not meeting a previous version's content (not some "impossible-to-achieve" bar set by real real-time players).